Hi everyone. We have become aware of a possible issue related to playback of 4k content on devices that are on version 15 of the Roku OS. This appears to be related to version 15 of the OS and is not related to the Plex app version on your device (we have seen reoprts on both the old and new UI). You can view some reports of the issue here:
We would like to help provide data points and information to get this addressed by Roku. If anyone is experiencing this issue and wants to provide us with data, information, or examples we would appreciate it. Information we are looking for if you are seeing issues with 4k playback:
confirmation of Roku OS 15
content information (4k? H.265? transcoding? Any other media information?)
Might be useful to pin this topic? It’ll probably get buried pretty fast with the more active forum posts the next couple days and not likely to pop-up in searches easily.
I’m experiencing this issue on one of my 4801RW roku devices that updated to version 15. My two others that are still on 14.6 work fine. I get the impression it has something to do with high bitrate 4k files. Either way, its h.265 4K movies, and the symptoms manifest as artifacting, pixilation, stuttering, audio out of sync and playback error. It happens if forced direct play or transcoding. Although it happens to all my 4k content, some of my files drastically vary in file size and bitrate. The lower the file size, the less symptoms show up, but there is always some sort of issue that manifest. 5GB to 30GB 4k h.265 files within MKV. Have not tested large 1080P files for the issue.
Still not working. The new app is garbage and nothing will play outside of my Home Page items. The files aren’t 4k either. Any item in a collection or specialized library won’t play at all. PLEASE revert back because there is nothing that we can play with this new version outside of the Home Page items. I have tried with all my libraries and it just wont play. Using Roku tvs and remote control.
All the x265 videos I have attempted to play are pixelated, distorted, choppy and/or crash after a few seconds. That includes those in very high bit rate and those with lower bit rate (I haven’t had it happen with x264 videos.) To get my videos to work I had to set the app to play everything at 720p, no higher setting would work but 720p plays fine. I assume that’s because it’s being fully transcoded into x264. This happened when my Roku Ultra updated to 15 a few days (Sept 10th) before the Plex App update (which I also hate) and continued after the update.
Model: 4801RW-Roku Ultra
Software version: 15.0.4 build 5519-DE
GC version: 14.5.10
Plex App: v8.6 build 5 and the previous (I don’t have that info but it was fully updated)
I want to add that playing x265 videos on Roku has always been problematic. And no, it’s not my server settings it was the same for videos on other peoples servers between at least 10 different Roku devices on different IPs and different servers. They would lag while load, stop at 33%, start over, if you jump ahead or jump back it would attempt to load and sometimes skip to the next episode or in the case of movies just kick you back to the info screen or even start over. It became a big issue for me when everyone started setting it to skip intros and it would play an opening scene, skip intro but then skip the rest of the episode and go to the next, sometimes skipping entire seasons like this. I did tons of tests and did every suggestion I could find online and never found a fix.
It wasn’t until I migrated my server over to a system that’s massive overkill (with an Nvidia 2080 super) that it relaxed some and at least now only does it every now and then instead of 4 out of 5 times.
I’m experiencing the same issue, everything has to be decoded to 720p for playback not to freeze. I’ve forced encoding and ran direct stream, neither make a difference if it’s above 720, nor does the bitrate itself seem to matter, I’ve got some <2Mbps 1080 that will freeze and some >4Mbps 720 that will play smooth, it’s strictly something to do with 1080+ video streams that causes the issue.
Example: Playing rips from the Seinfeld 4K set. Video will play for a couple seconds, then freeze, the audio will continue.
Direct play is currently said as Automatic.
Transcoding is On
Detailed media info:
Video
ID : 1
ID in the original source medium : 4113 (0x1011)
Format : HEVC
Format/Info : High Efficiency Video Coding
Format profile : Main 10@L5.1@High
HDR format : SMPTE ST 2086, HDR10 compatible
Codec ID : V_MPEGH/ISO/HEVC
Duration : 55 min 48 s
Bit rate : 50.4 Mb/s
Width : 3 840 pixels
Height : 2 160 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 23.976 (24000/1001) FPS
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0 (Type 2)
Bit depth : 10 bits
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.253
Time code of first frame : 00:59:59:00
Stream size : 19.6 GiB (91%)
Writing library : ATEME Titan File 3.9.12 (4.9.12.2)
Language : English
Default : No
Forced : No
Color range : Limited
Color primaries : BT.2020
Transfer characteristics : PQ
Matrix coefficients : BT.2020 non-constant
Mastering display color primaries : Display P3
Mastering display luminance : min: 0.0050 cd/m2, max: 1000 cd/m2
Maximum Content Light Level : 1000 cd/m2
Maximum Frame-Average Light Level : 300 cd/m2
Original source medium : Blu-ray
Was experiencing occasional stuttering and pixelation last night on my Roku Ultra LT. Verified that the unit had updated to Roku OS 15.
This was occurring on 1080p H265 content. From some of the comments on the Roku forum, it appears that it’s not specific to 4K content, but possibly just H265 in general.
I’m having playback issues with any 4k H265 content. I don’t have issues I think with h264. I can play 1080 H264 with no problem.
My issues started this week. Everything was working fine before. I’m have issues with at least 3 different files all 4k H265. The video shutters, pixelation and audio jumps.
My info:
Roku 4850x - Ultra running 15.0
Plex client - 8.6.5
I am having the 4K playback issue trying to play 1080p videos. The issues I am experiencing are:
solid green screen or green tinted screen
Frozen frames
Sped up or slow playback
Audio stops playing or unsyncs
Blocky/Pixelated images
Outlines for last frame stuck in video
Model: 4850X - Ultra
Software version: 15.0
Source video:
Resolution: 1080p
Codec: HEVC (H.265), 10-bit
It looks like from the logs, that Plex is transcoding 1080p content to 4K (3840x2160), even though the source video is 1080p. Even when Roku’s system resolution is set to 1080p, Plex still initiates a 4K transcode.
My Plex Server is on a AMD 12 core 5900X and CPU usage is minimal while the issues happen.
Thank you all for these reports! Really appreciate the feedback here. We will be discussing what we (the Plex team) can do to try and help get this addressed this week in a meeting, and these data points really help us in that effort. I have been a bit busy with the Fireside chat last week, but hope to get back in and give an update from our perspective later this week on this topic. Thank you again!
Thankfully, I found this thread because it’s been driving me nuts.
I can confirm I am seeing the same issue as described above - Roku Ulta, v15.
Media I’m having trouble playing are generally x265 or H265 encoded files. That said, I haven’t tried my entire library exhaustively.
I did notice I had more artifacts when I forced my Dolby Vision to Yes. I still had a lot of stuttering or paused frames when I turned that setting to No.
Sample of a 4K file I was trying, where I tested turning forcing DV from Yes to No and still had stuttering/freeze frame issues:
The issue does not seem to be limited to H265 or 4K. I’m able to reproduce with H264 and 1080p. However, file size / bitrate does seems to play a role.
When playing a file, the stream will work for ~20 seconds, then either stutter and freeze, or picture will degrade and artifact while the audio continues. These same files play as expected on other clients (mobile + xbox).
Here is what a 1080p H264 stream looks like on Roku (doesn’t play). Big spikes until you quit the stream.
I have to transcode to 1080p to get it (mostly) stable. Up until now I’ve been very solid with directplay. ~20Mbit content on 1Gbit LAN. It is the 2024 Roku Ultra. I’ll have to check the versions of everything, but this seemed to start yesterday. It basically gets pixelated and freezes a lot. The 4k material should be mostly H.265 with HDR. Turning off subtitles doesn’t help, the subtitles sometimes force a transcode.
Yes I have confirm issues is seems to be connected to file size, I have 4 Roku in house 2 on LAN and one wifi and one soundbar, ALL have issues with any 4k, will pixelate stutter, freeze, pretty much unplayable have also found with my 1080p playback, seems to have started with the new UI. Smaller files seems to be ok, but will freeze.
Unfortunately I did not realize it was a Plex issue until AFTER I started to disassemble my network, trying to isolate a bad cable, swapped out a smart switch, basically spent the weekend trying to troubleshoot my network until I came to the realization it was a Plex/Roku update or other software issue, which actually made me quite mad over the time and resources wasted! I should of realized it was software as nothing on my network has changed!
